Monthly Archives: January 2012

Having looked into why high-speed rail from New York to Boston should go through Providence, I want to explain why it should go through New Haven, rather than through any of the fanciful Long Island routings proposed most prominently by … Continue reading →

Those of you following my Twitter feed already know this: I’m moving to Vancouver sometime in this summer for a two-year position at UBC. Expect a dramatic reduction in the number of posts expressing exasperation with local transit planning beginning … Continue reading →

The most straightforward part of constructing greenfield tracks for high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor is east of New Haven. There are good legacy lines to hook into, and good Interstate corridors to follow when the legacy lines are too … Continue reading →

As a followup to my claim in my first post about improving the MBTA about the low mode share of commuter rail for trips into Boston, here are some figures about commuter rail use, by sector. All numbers exclude commuters … Continue reading →

This is morally the last post in my series on improving the MBTA: see here, here, and here for the three previous posts. However, it’s a more general principle concerning interlined regional rail services. Good practice for running transit service … Continue reading →

Where improvements in New York and other very large cities can easily include multiple new subway lines, the same is not true of Boston. The concrete pouring would be wasted, since Boston’s existing subway lines are not at capacity. The … Continue reading →

The MBTA commuter rail lines are laid in such a way that there’s an inherent tension between providing local service and providing longer-distance intercity service. It’s less apparent on the Providence Line because the intercity component, i.e. Boston-Providence, follows immediately … Continue reading →